'386 Unix Wars

[Sean Eric Fagan]

In article <1991Jan01.183414.19220 at Veritas.COM> geoff at Veritas.COM (Geoffrey Leach) writes:
>You're right.  It was Karl.  Sorry 'bout that.

'Sokay.  I was tired and cranky when I followed up to your posting.  Sorry
'bout that 8-).

>This does sound to me like you think support IS expensive.  

It is.

>My point was that there seems to be a mindset in this industry that product
>quality is an economic issue, i.e., that one can "afford" to ship buggy
>software, because its "too expensive" to get it right.  Making a profit center
>out of product support makes this easier to do.

Yes and no.  Yes, one can "afford" to ship buggy code, provided it meets
most peoples requirements, because it will never be noticed.  Note that, in
some cases, it is impossible to prove current software bugfree.

>My proposal is that product support should be provided free with the product.

And I suggest you take a look at the costs for it.  It takes too much money
to support everyone, especially when, as I said in another article, it's not
necessarily the software vendor at fault.

>If computers were cars, everyone but the Amish would be dead by now.

Do you expect the person you buy your car from to provide "support"
indefinitely?  Do you go up to mechanics and ask them detailed questions
about what's wrong with your car?  Do you give them the keys to the car and
ask them to find out what's wrong and fix it?  This is, is a lot of ways,
quite close to the problem with software, since a large part of the cost is
diagnosis.

You commented about software not working as advertised.  I don't know
exactly, since I haven't taken too close a look, but I believe that both ISC
and SCO have a list of hardware vendors whose products are known to work
with the software.  If you go to a third party, or mix things not covered by
either party, who should pay for anything that breaks?

Software support *is* expensive.  I do believe that the approach most
vendors take, of offering a limited amount of support with the product, is
the correct thing to do (I may have quibbles with the exact details for
each, mind you, but the idea is right), because it gives the "average"
person, who is most likely to run into problems when setting up the system
initially, a chance to get started.  For the people who are running into
problems all the time, well, they should pay for the time they're using.

This is known as capitalism.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef at kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.